小嫂子的味道

The klauth was thousands—no, maybe ten thousand meters, perhaps it was flying even higher than that. The scenery around my eyes was nothing but ash-colored mist. As it reached a certain height, the speed slowed, and the dragon turned in a semi-circle before diving straight down.

I felt the G forces affecting me but I did not have the time to deal with them. The dragon was going down at an even higher speed than when it was coming up, my hair was fluttering and some strands were going in my eyes, my cheeks were getting crushed by the air pressure and my whole body was getting pushed back.

If not for the stone glued between my feet and the dragon's tail, I would have been flying by now.

I held the sword in front of my chest and pointed it down, and waited for the right time. And the time came, the klauth was about to turn again and I could see the ground below.

I bent down on my knees, the dragon about to change its path just before touching the ground, the natural forces worked again. I broke the stone holding my feet and jumped away from its tail and toward its back.

The experience was like a roller coaster ride, especially when they go round and round and round.

'Now!' I commanded.

I was in the mid-air when the sword in my hand transformed into a girl and now instead of the hilt, I was holding her hand. She looked me straight in the eyes, smiled, and then gathered her power.

She swung her body in a circle, she pulled me, and thus I also spun. Then as if throwing a baseball she clenched the palm of my hand tightly and threw me hard toward the head of the klauth.

I meshed a few circles before I balanced myself with my face straight in front of the dragon's skull.

I clenched my fingers into a fist, used elemental magic, and heated my right hand until there was a red fireball surrounding my first.

At this point, the dragon was only about a hundred or so meters away from the ground and was just about to complete its dive when I landed directly on its skull.

It was a hard, very hard blow as the first thing that came into contact with its bone was my fist surrounded by fire. I used more elemental magic and a mushroom cloud of pure flames surrounded me as I landed and punched the dragon hard on the head.

A shockwave discharged from the point I connected my punch followed by a loud sound.

It was more powerful than I'd expected, probably because the gravitational forces had pulled me and increased the overall power of the attack as a result.

The dragon imbalanced and its head bent down and crashed on the ground, rushing through the floor and destroying the stone it dragged itself for a while before it gained control again and stopped by using its hands.

Then it got up on all fours; I'd said this before but the kloth had hands like a sphinx, it was no wonder that he could walk.

"Catch me!!!" I heard a scream and upon looking up I saw that Req was falling down.

Before reaching me she transformed back into the sword and I caught it with one of my hands.

"Ah fuck," the words left my mouth on their own as the surface before my feet shook. Well, it was not exactly a surface.

The dragon now knew that we were chilling on his head hence he was shaking it like a mad dog.

I trailed off, it was hard to stay rigid in one position. Then seeking the right moment, I jumped off from its head and down to the ground at a distance.

"Aggghh,"  a pained groan left my mouth. I held the sword in my left hand and looked over to my right palm and fingers.

There wasn't much to think about…they were broken, probably from the punch I just landed.

I reached out to the pocket of my pants, then when I didn't find what I was looking for I looked in the inside pocket of my cloak. There I found it.

A test tube filled with a bright golden liquid, it was a cheap healing potion I'd bought in the Gannett town. I had one more which I'd bought back in the capital city but I had already used that one to get rid of the pain of the stab wound Challes gave me.

I knocked off the lid and gulped the potion. The taste wasn't good, not like I expected it to be. The taste of real potions was nothing like what I used to think about in my former life, they felt just as colored, thick water with a high viscosity.

I threw the glass tube and wiped my mouth, holding the sword with two hands again. The potion wasn't going to completely heal my hand as it was not an expensive one but it'll soothe it enough so I can fight without any problem.

[You fine?]

'Yeah. But leaving that aside, I don't think the punch did anything to our big guy. Not like I was expecting it to anyway.'

The klauth shook its head several times as if to clear its mind and then stood on all fours, straight like it had never taken any damage.

It turned to me, eyes burning with crimson and flames lurking out of its mouth. This time the creature's expression wasn't neutral…I could see the anger in his eyes.

A loud roar resounded in the area, loud enough to crush stones and slip apart the insides of someone's ears if they were close. The dragon sucked the air, burned the oxygen, and blew it toward me.

The large, curling tornado of a fire vortex raged in my direction. I took back a few steps and drew in a breath to calm my body. I raised the sword and faced it at the fire.

I focused and called upon the elements of nature. The air before me froze, it froze until there was a translucent mirror-like sheet of ice covering my front. It spread far away, around thirty meters on each side…it was pretty thick too.

This can be called a good defense, yet I took a few more steps backward. Not taking my eyes off the dragon even for a second.

The fire struck, but it did not harm me as the ice wall was there for my protection. But as I've suspected, the only thing it did was slow down the speed of the fire vortex before shattering into a thousand pieces. The ice wall looked like a frame of glass, and it got destroyed like one too.

I called for another element, and this time raised a high wall of water before me. The fire vortex combined with it and a hundred clouds of steam were released as both the fire and water elements hungrily devoured each other, leaving nothing behind and finally extinguishing the dragon's breath.

[The was close.]

'Yeah. It certainly was.'

For some reason, Req was not surprised that I could use magic. Well, using magic in itself wasn't a strange thing, but the fact that I can use it without an incantation and magic circles was the tricky part. And right now I was using it on huge scales too. I thought about asking, then reconsidered when I looked at the kloth in front of me.

The klauth turned its body toward me, lowered its head, and looked as if it was going for a physical attack now. It was a big creature and would take time before it reached me, therefore I had some time to think over my moves. I'd originally planned to hit it with the sword but…

…now I wasn't seeing much hope for that.

[What're you waiting for? Use your magiken!] Req commanded, or I should say she literally screamed inside my head.

'I can't.'

[What do you mean you can't?]

'I said I can't use magiken. It doesn't work for me.'

[Oh! Is that so? Well, how many times do I have to tell you that our souls are one now, huh?! Just do it and see, I'll work. I'll explain later how.]

'I...sigh, fine.'

I didn't take orders from anyone but myself, and that was the only way I felt comfortable. But here, even if I didn't feel good about it, I had to listen to Req.

I pointed the sword's tip towards the dragon, felt up my mana, and directed its flow into the sword. I sensed the sword sucking and feeding onto my mana, but this was where things usually stopped. However…

The sword's blade lit up, the same as the blade of other students I'd seen in the academy. A powerful sensation ran throughout my body, it was as if I had been electrocuted.

It was…refreshing. I felt powerful, more than before. I was confident about my speed more than before, confident about my strength, agility, and attack power. And there was only one reason for all that—I had successfully activated the magiken. My very own magiken.

However, there was just this little difference. Unlike the swords of other students in the academy that got lit up with the same color as their mana whenever one uses the magiken, my sword was dark.

It was dark, covered in shadows. The blade itself hadn't changed color but around it danced a black fog, deep as the valleys and dark as a human's heart.